US-registered plane grounded by DGCA after surprise check

A US-registered Bombardier aircraft and a private charter plane and its pilot were grounded by DGCA following a surprise safety check by the aviation regulator at Delhi airport, official sources said today.
Several "major" safety violations were found in the eight- seater Bombardier Global 5000 aircraft during a DGCA safety check drive after it landed here from Paris on Tuesday, they said. The plane is owned by the Nevada Global Aviation LLC and registered in Michigan state of the US.
It was found that the aircraft did not have the mandatory oxygen masks or operations manual on board while its emergency exit was blocked up with luggage, the sources said, adding that the records of instrument rating or competency checks of the pilots were also found missing.

After the grounding of the plane, the pilot-in-command was directed to rectify the faults before flying out of India, they said, adding that the Air Traffic Control at IGI Airport has been asked to clear the plane for flying only after the defects were rectified.
Another eight-seater aircraft, a Cessna flown by non- scheduled operator Pinnacle Air, and its commander were grounded after a series of "significant" faults were found in the surprise check when the plane landed here from Ludhiana.
Among the major findings was that the crew operated the flight without the essential weather reports and NOTAMS, or instructions to pilots. Besides, the pilot-in-command was carrying an airport entry permit which did not belong to Pinnacle Air, where he was working.

The pilot was taken off the roster and instructed not to fly until he underwent a technical refresher which is to be evaluated by the DGCA's flight operations inspector, the sources said.

During the checks, the DGCA expert team also found defects in the static port of a SpiceJet plane with the sources saying that similar glitches were found earlier in the planes of IndiGo and some other carriers as well.
The static port is a system of pressure-sensitive instruments used to determine an aircraft's airspeed and altitude, among other things. If the port is defective, it would cause the airspeed indicator to register an increase in airspeed when the plane climbs even though actual airspeed remains constant.

Maintaining that this was a "serious safety issue", the sources said that DGCA has directed all airlines to immediately get such faults rectified in order to protect the area around the safety port of all the planes in their fleet "within a stipulated time-frame".